Green sea turtles having a bumper nesting season

Tuesday

Sep 17, 2013 at 6:28 PMSep 17, 2013 at 9:47 PM

Five green sea turtles plodded onto the 24 miles of beach at Canaveral National Seashore to lay their eggs in the summer of 1999. This year, 4,100 green turtles made their way to that same stretch of beach straddling Volusia and Brevard counties, and they're still arriving nightly by the dozens.

By Dinah Voyles Pulverdinah.pulver@news-jrnl.com

Five green sea turtles plodded onto the 24 miles of beach at Canaveral National Seashore to lay their eggs in the summer of 1999. This year, 4,100 green turtles made their way to that same stretch of beach straddling Volusia and Brevard counties, and they're still arriving nightly by the dozens. As the 2013 sea turtle nesting season starts to wind down toward its Oct. 31 end, it appears to be the year of the green turtle all along Florida's east coast. “This has blown all of us completely away,” said John Stiner, park biologist for the National Seashore. When Stiner counted the five green turtle nests in 1999, the park also counted roughly 4,000 loggerhead nests. This year, for the first time, the number of green turtle nests will surpass the number of loggerhead nests. “That was absolutely inconceivable five or six years ago,” Stiner said. “It's very, very unprecedented but a very pleasant surprise.” It's a good season from many different perspectives, said Blair Witherington, a turtle biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, including the success of the green turtles and a lack of big storms and waves to erode the beach and threaten the nests.The green turtle story is unfolding all along the coast. Along the four miles of beach that include Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area in Flagler Beach and North Peninsula State Park, 180 turtle nests have been counted so far, already up 24 over the 2012 total. “Last year was a record year and this year has been even higher,” said Park Ranger Tony Greaves. “The most significant difference has been the greens.” The greens — at 30 nests — are “way up,” he said. At the state's premier turtle nesting location, the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Brevard County, the number of green turtle nests will surpass the number of loggerheads, said Witherington. “It's amazing,” he said. “I remember working on these beaches in south Brevard in the 1980s and I counted 281 green turtle nests one season.”“That was a big year,” he said. “This year, it's going to be over 10,000.”Biologists aren't sure exactly why so many greens are nesting this year. Typically their nesting fluctuates over time and the numbers were due to be on an upswing this year. But the numbers are up much higher than expected.Witherington points out the endangered turtles have been protected for a generation. “We protect them and lo and behold, they come back,” he said.The green turtles are the latest nesters of the three primary species that dig nests along local beaches. Their nests are expected to continue appearing through the end of September.It's been a relatively calm season which has been a good thing for our nesting turtles, said Jennifer Winters, coordinator of Volusia County's sea turtle program. Volusia is having its second highest nesting season on record, Winters said, with a total of 673 nests between the Seashore and North Peninsula.The beaches look very good, said Witherington. “Every night we've got tens of thousands of hatchlings streaming off our beaches, which is very good.” In Volusia, Winters said, nest monitors have counted more than 37,000 hatched eggshells.Winters, Witherington and others hope the good conditions remain. “That's something we always worry about with the late nesters,” said Stiner. “The longer we can go with good weather, the more nests will hatch and leave the beach.”